Lord Adonis: My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education (Bill Rammell) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	I have today written to heads of all English higher education institutions explaining how the Government are taking forward our commitment outlined in paragraph 7.10 of the 2003 White Paper The Future of Higher Education. Copies of my letter have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament.
	Chapter 7 of the White Paper focused on freeing up higher education institutions from bureaucracy and questioned how far regulation of universities through the Privy Council was necessary. Currently, the legal position is that all changes to institutions' charters and statutes or instruments and articles of government have to be approved by the Privy Council and can delay institutional changes. The White Paper concluded that the Privy Council did not need to approve minor changes in the way universities go about their business. Subsequently, we have been working to decide what should count as a "minor change".
	My letter explains how our proposals for de-regulation of governance arrangements will mean that in future only core issues of public interest will be monitored by the Privy Council.
	The approach to drawing up key areas of public interest that still need protecting has been agreed by the department, the Privy Council Office and our stakeholder bodies—Universities UK, the Standing Conference of Principals, the Association of Heads of University Administration, the Committee of University Chairmen, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the devolved administrations.
	The department has identified the key areas where there is a continuing "public interest" in university governance. These include degree awarding powers and university title, powers and objects, academic freedom and governance structures, particularly the functions and constitution of the governing body. Non-key areas include provisions on membership, internal structures and detailed roles and constitution bodies such as the senate and court.
	My letter explains that while the Government cannot require institutions to liberalise their governance arrangements, we very much hope that they will bring forward proposals that will relieve them of the obligation of having all amendments to their governance arrangements agreed by the Privy Council.
	This is just one of the steps we are taking to demonstrate that the Government are serious about reducing unnecessary bureaucracy to the absolute minimum compatible with effective regulation and quality assurance, not just in higher education, but more broadly across education and the economy as a whole. Light touch, risk-based and proportionate regulation is essential for the success of any sector in our 21st century economy and this is especially vital for higher education, to help ensure our universities remain world class.